Incline Disco Elysium - The Final Cut - a hardboiled cop show isometric RPG

[mvBarracuda]

At least now I know, why some Disco Elysium art seemed so familiar looking to me.

Kaspar Tamsalu created some great art for PARPG back in the day. Unfortunately the project went nowhere - for which in huge part my naivity about creating games was to blame. But it's great to see that Kaspar's art has come such a long way

Some of his art that he created for PARPG back in the day:

Spoiler

I hope Kaspar doesn't mind me posting this here.

On the actual topic: I just finished Disco Elysium over the weekend and I fucking loved it. I'm going for another playthrough soon.

 

[Theldaran]

Which one of you wrote this?

We're not shooter or action gamers, you dork!

 

[Kasparov]

At least now I know, why some Disco Elysium art seemed so familiar looking to me.

Kaspar Tamsalu created some great art for PARPG back in the day. Unfortunately the project went nowhere - for which in huge part my naivity about creating games was to blame. But it's great to see that Kaspar's art has come such a long way

Some of his art that he created for PARPG back in the day:

Spoiler

I hope Kaspar doesn't mind me posting this here.

On the actual topic: I just finished Disco Elysium over the weekend and I fucking loved it. I'm going for another playthrough soon.

I'm glad you liked Disco :D
Wow yeah PARPG was a while ago now! Great to hear from you! I actually did a concept inspired by something we were working on for PARPG for my test job when I applied for the concept artist position at ZA/UM

 

[mvBarracuda]

I'm glad you liked Disco :D
Wow yeah PARPG was a while ago now! Great to hear from you! I actually did a concept inspired by something we were working on for PARPG for my test job when I applied for the concept artist position at ZA/UM

Glad things worked out for you Really loved the art (and the writing) in the Disco Elysium.

Somehow it gives the whole PARPG project (for me personally) a slightly new, greater meaning. I'm really looking forward to what ZA/UM will be doing next.

 

[Citizen]

Which one of you wrote this?

it would say "not a game for RPG gamer" then

 

[Grunker]

game is pretty good huh

 

[1eyedking]

game is pretty good huh

No.

It's just another hyped piece of RickandMortyware only your stoned college roommate would find interesting. Read: all of RPG Codex and validation-seeking failed millenial hipsters out there.

"Like... you wouldn't get it, the game discusses philosophic ramifications of the Baudelairean id to the compass of *bombastic* cavalry marches—that means it's fast, Copperino Man!—that would require heavy doses of unprecedented and distilled panaché to even comprehend the most base «point d'honneur», to reconnoiter such a grand performance. Nothing a waste of photon emission like you would understand, sinä tyhmä ja kulttuurimaton pala kapitalistista uusfeminististä kuluttajaa!".

This game is what happens when a failed college grad plays Planescape:Torment and decides to give it a try while on a bad acid trip, access to a continuous internet connection to Google Translate, all the while sick with the satisfaction of smelling his own farts as he jams 1 million words-worth of unrestrained mental onanism.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

game is pretty good huh

"Like... you wouldn't get it, the game discusses philosophic ramifications of the Baudelairean id to the compass of *bombastic* cavalry marches—that means it's fast, Copperino Man!—that would require heavy doses of unprecedented and distilled panaché to even comprehend the most base «point d'honneur», to reconnoiter such a grand performance. Nothing a waste of photon emission like you would understand, sinä tyhmä ja kulttuurimaton pala kapitalistista uusfeminististä kuluttajaa!".

It does have TikTok dances tho!

 

[NJClaw]

game is pretty good huh

No.

It's just another hyped piece of RickandMortyware only your stoned college roommate would find interesting. Read: all of RPG Codex and validation-seeking failed millenial hipsters out there.

"Like... you wouldn't get it, the game discusses philosophic ramifications of the Baudelairean id to the compass of *bombastic* cavalry marches—that means it's fast, Copperino Man!—that would require heavy doses of unprecedented and distilled panaché to even comprehend the most base «point d'honneur», to reconnoiter such a grand performance. Nothing a waste of photon emission like you would understand, sinä tyhmä ja kulttuurimaton pala kapitalistista uusfeminististä kuluttajaa!".

This game is what happens when a failed college grad plays Planescape:Torment and decides to give it a try while on a bad acid trip, access to a continuous internet connection to Google Translate, all the while sick with the satisfaction of smelling his own farts as he jams 1 million words-worth of unrestrained mental onanism.

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

 

[Prime Junta]

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

inb4 a Steam review with those exact words mysteriously appears from nowhere

 

[NJClaw]

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

inb4 a Steam review with those exact words mysteriously appears from nowhere

Well, if you have to resort to steam reviews, you have already lost.

 

[1eyedking]

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

The very fact that no one is criticizing the writing aspect of the game—which is 90% of what Disco Elysium is—already says a lot about what people consider good or bad in this game.

And not considering the writing vapid, awkwardly attempting to be vanguardist (which is, ironically, gauche to an extreme), and pretentiously immature (ffs it's straight out of an Adult Swim cartoon's script) is all I needed to know.

I'm all for stat checks and choices & consequences, but wrapped in insufferable hipster college grad-tier writing? I'll pass.

inb4 a Steam review with those exact words mysteriously appears from nowhere

This kind of writing is very easily imitable—and cringe.

 

[NJClaw]

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

The very fact that no one is criticizing the writing aspect of the game—which is 90% of what Disco Elysium is—already says a lot about what people consider good or bad in this game.

And not considering the writing vapid, awkwardly attempting to be vanguardist (which is, ironically, gauche to an extreme), and pretentiously immature (ffs it's straight out of an Adult Swim cartoon's script) is all I needed to know.

I'm all for stat checks and choices & consequences, but wrapped in insufferable hipster college grad-tier writing? I'll pass.

inb4 a Steam review with those exact words mysteriously appears from nowhere

This kind of writing is very easily imitable—and cringe.

Have you actually played the game? Because the way you talk about it makes me think you are inferring that's the writing of the entire game just by looking at a couple screenshots.

You play a man with voices in his head and each voice has its own personality. Your stats distribution determines which voices you hear more often and which voices you have to rely on to complete your tasks. Some of these voices are written like that, but not all of them. Saying that the writing of the entire game is like that is absurd.

 

[Grunker]

game is pretty good huh

No.

It's just another hyped piece of RickandMortyware only your stoned college roommate would find interesting. Read: all of RPG Codex and validation-seeking failed millenial hipsters out there.

"Like... you wouldn't get it, the game discusses philosophic ramifications of the Baudelairean id to the compass of *bombastic* cavalry marches—that means it's fast, Copperino Man!—that would require heavy doses of unprecedented and distilled panaché to even comprehend the most base «point d'honneur», to reconnoiter such a grand performance. Nothing a waste of photon emission like you would understand, sinä tyhmä ja kulttuurimaton pala kapitalistista uusfeminististä kuluttajaa!".

This game is what happens when a failed college grad plays Planescape:Torment and decides to give it a try while on a bad acid trip, access to a continuous internet connection to Google Translate, all the while sick with the satisfaction of smelling his own farts as he jams 1 million words-worth of unrestrained mental onanism.

nah it's just a good game

 

[Harthwain]

Can you please reference a single post where the game was praised in the way you are mocking?

The very fact that no one is criticizing the writing aspect of the game—which is 90% of what Disco Elysium is—already says a lot about what people consider good or bad in this game.

And not considering the writing vapid, awkwardly attempting to be vanguardist (which is, ironically, gauche to an extreme), and pretentiously immature (ffs it's straight out of an Adult Swim cartoon's script) is all I needed to know.

I'm all for stat checks and choices & consequences, but wrapped in insufferable hipster college grad-tier writing? I'll pass.

inb4 a Steam review with those exact words mysteriously appears from nowhere

This kind of writing is very easily imitable—and cringe.

Are you a politician by trade? Because that's pretty much grass speech.

 

[1eyedking]

Have you actually played the game? Because the way you talk about it makes me think you are inferring that's the writing of the entire game just by looking at a couple screenshots.

You play a man with voices in his head and each voice has its own personality. Your stats distribution determines which voices you hear more often and which voices you have to rely on to complete your tasks. Some of these voices are written like that, but not all of them. Saying that the writing of the entire game is like that is absurd.

I've played the game. And yes, the writing of the entire game tends towards that needlessly convoluted slope.

It's a style of prose that is pretty much rampant in post-modernist literature. And frankly, it's cringe.

To make an incredibly simple but fatal point: why did the writer use the word 'boiadeiro' instead of cowboy to refer to...cowboys?

 

[Prime Junta]

To make an incredibly simple but fatal point: why did the writer use the word 'boiadeiro' instead of cowboy to refer to...cowboys?

Worldbuilding motherfucker. Same reason mithril is called mithril rather than stainless steel.

 

[Black Angel]

To make an incredibly simple but fatal point: why did the writer use the word 'boiadeiro' instead of cowboy to refer to...cowboys?

Worldbuilding motherfucker. Same reason mithril is called mithril rather than stainless steel.

Mithril is *actually* stainless steel????!!! *looks at my stainless steel pan with a dropped jaw*

 

[Prime Junta]

Mithril is *actually* stainless steel????!!! *looks at my stainless steel pan with a dropped jaw*

Fits the metallurgy.

Anyway, Disco Elysium has a lot of made-up words and for example uses French phrases and names a lot. That's all anchored in the worldbuilding. Boiaderos for example come from Mezque, which is a setting suggestive of South America. However it's not South America, so while calling them gauchos would have been better than calling them cowboys, they're still not quite the same thing, therefore the made-up word. Just like a motor-carriage is not quite a car, or a pistolette is not quite like a pistol. Close enough that you get the meaning, but different enough that you get that there's a difference.

Same thing with all the French. The dominant cultural power is Francophone, so the language of pop culture is French. Therefore Guillaume Le Million and all the graffiti in sometimes stilted French. So you get "La potence aux riches" rather than "Hang the rich."

You don't have to like it, but it's there for a reason, just like Josh's pwgras and fampyrs.

 

[Harthwain]

To make an incredibly simple but fatal point: why did the writer use the word 'boiadeiro' instead of cowboy to refer to...cowboys?

Worldbuilding motherfucker. Same reason mithril is called mithril rather than stainless steel.

Wouldn't mithril be a fantasy equivalent of titanium?

 

[Prime Junta]

Wouldn't mithril be a fantasy equivalent of titanium?

Titanium is grey rather than silvery and the metallurgy is completely different. On the other hand you could conceivably have a naturally-occurring alloy of iron that, when forged with mega-secret dwarven techniques, ends up as an incredibly tough (compared to other medieval metals), silvery metal that's impervious to corrosion. Add just a touch of magic and you've got Frodo's mail shirt.

It's fantasy stainless steel, BELIEVE ME

Spoiler

this is the hill I intend to die on

 

[Tigranes]

The "how many words did you make up in your video game" test is really tiring, pointless, and poorly thought out. There's really no coherent reasoning, just something people can use to criticise anything they don't like.

If bits of different languages or made-up words are used to strengthen the distinct feel of a setting/character, then that's a good thing, and it doesn't really have to make absolute perfect sense. Anyone can always create an argument about why X word should have been used instead of Y, but surely nobody is arguing that you have to have some ironclad theory of how this fantasy planet must have formed through what kinds of periodic table in order for hardasfuckarium to be a thing.

In the case of DE there's a super clear set of resonances that takes the washed up colonial ennui (via all the French and especially Rene, the windswept seaside locale, etc) with a different, but in some ways very similar, indifference of post-communist Eastern Europe and its zombie afterlife. "Totally-not-Marx" guy or random bits of boiaderos and Le Million is a part of that. Disco is a very pastiche-heavy thing throughout and if you don't like it, you don't like it, but getting rid of that wouldn't have made the writing better all round, probably the opposite.

We'll put up a nice unobtainium monument for you on that hill, primey

 

[Prime Junta]

but in some ways very similar, indifference of post-communist Eastern Europe and its zombie afterlife

That's not the reference they're going for, even though Westerners generally think it is. The French got it in one however.

 

[Tigranes]

I will freely admit to missing the specific vibes there, though I'm not American.

There's also something about the design/layout of the tenements in the starting area that is very French for me, though I can't place it (and I could be wrong again).

 

[Prime Junta]

I will freely admit to missing the specific vibes there, though I'm not American.

There's also something about the design/layout of the tenements in the starting area that is very French for me, though I can't place it (and I could be wrong again).

Hint: Communists are called communards.